Living separated from family: the socioeconomic resources and mental health of unaccompanied refugee minors in young adulthood

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of absence of family on the education outcomes, labor market position and mental health of unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) in Finland. Design/methodology/approach The authors used Finnish register data covering 1991–2015 from a Nordic study titled Coming of Age in Exile that studied how socio-economic and health inequities develop during the formative years in young refugees (in Finland born between 1976 and 1999). From this data the authors identified 1,361 unaccompanied URMs born before 1997 who settled in Finland before 2010 and whom they followed until 2015. The comparison groups were accompanied refugee-origin minors (n = 10,264) and URMs whose parents immigrated later (n = 233). The methods were descriptive statistics and logistic regression analysis. Findings Accompanied refugee-origin youth completed more education and were more often employedthan URMs who lived in Finland without their families. This was mainly connected to their early migration age and living with their parents. URMs without a parent had the worst mental health outcomes: they had higher odds of using psychiatric care, had more mood and anxiety diagnoses and were prescribed antidepressants, anxiolytics or sedatives more often. Research limitations/implications One limitation of this study is that the authors do not know exactly how representative the register data on URMs is, as there are no means to validate it. They were able to obtain information on 1,594 URMs, comprising 36.2 % of the approximately 4,400 URMs who arrived in Finland between 1991 and 2010, by using other sources. Since demographic, socioeconomic and health information on URMs appears in national registers, they must have been granted residence permits in Finland. In addition, the subjective experiences of URMs who settled in Finland were missing in this register study. Practical implications The negative impact of family separation on children’s wellbeing stress the importance of family and that transnational family connections should be acknowledged in social work with URMs (Seidel et al., 2022). In addition to revisiting family reunification policies in Finland and elsewhere, family-based foster care could support the wellbeing of unaccompanied refugee minors (Kauhanen et al., 2022; Kuusisto-Arponen, 2016). Social implications In the absence of family, the formation of family-like relationships (Tiilikainen et al., 2023) could become an important foundation for wellbeing of URMs. Living with one’s family markedly improves the wellbeing of URMs and should be considered in migration policies that deal with family reunification. Originality/value There are few register-based studies of URMs. Living without family when settling into a new country as a teenager may cause a deterioration in the mental health of URMs, which in turn may lower their study skills and ability to work. Living with one’s family markedly improves the wellbeing of URMs and should be considered in migration policies that deal with family reunification